All posts by Tim Sevenhuysen

Tim Sevenhuysen is the founder and sole developer of Oracle's Elixir and provides a variety of consulting and contracting services throughout the esports industry. He is the former Director of Esports Analytics for 100 Thieves, served as Head of Data Science for Esports One, led Shadow.gg from 2017 to 2019, and was Statistical Consultant for Fnatic in 2015. Follow Tim on Twitter at @TimSevenhuysen.
Podcast

True Sight Podcast Ep. 9 – Pastrytime on Scouting Grounds, Mobalytics Power Rankings, and the LCS offseason

Audio

Or watch the video version of the show (without the player interviews) on YouTube.

Julian “Pastrytime” Carr calls in to share his impressions of the 2020 Honda Scouting Grounds, review the power rankings he and Tim put together for the Mobalytics analytical coverage of the event, and give some opinions on Cloud9, Team Liquid, and the rest of the LCS offseason.

Mobalytics Scouting Grounds portal: https://app.mobalytics.gg/lol/scouting-grounds/power-rankings

Follow Pastrytime at twitter.com/Pastrytime
Pastrytime’s Instagram: instagram.com/therealpastrytime
Follow Tim at twitter.com/TimSevenhuysen

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Show Notes Continue reading True Sight Podcast Ep. 9 – Pastrytime on Scouting Grounds, Mobalytics Power Rankings, and the LCS offseason →

Analysis and Opinion

Pros/Cons of LCS Academy/Amateur format changes, feat. call-in from Golden Guardians asst. GM Kami

Video

Tim digs into the format changes planned for LCS academy and amateur in 2021 and beyond, and takes a call from Jon (Kami), the assistant General Manager of the Golden Guardians, who has had extensive input into both the LCS and academy/amateur formats and sees big positives, but also lots of room for improvement.

Follow Jon on Twitter

Official LoL esports article

Analysis and Opinion

LCS Academy/Amateur Format Overhaul

Note at 11:20 AM Pacific: Some portions of this article have been edited based on clarifications received from LCS staff.

The LCS is announcing a complete overhaul of the Academy and amateur competitive format, introducing sweeping changes that include heavy emphasis on tournament-style play, many opportunities for Academy and amateur teams to compete against each other, and extended protections and contracting guidelines to give LCS teams more incentive to invest in developing talent beyond the Academy level.

Overall, this structure is an enormous improvement and should bring many different benefits into the scene, even if it’s not perfect in some of the fine details.

You can read the complete announcement on the LoL esports website, or keep scrolling here for analysis of the key points and how they will affect and incentivize both LCS and amateur organizations.

Competitive Format

The format is a little complex, so you might have to go through it a few times to grasp the nuances.


LCS infographic illustrating the new Academy/amateur format for Spring 2021

Effectively, there is now a half-length Academy regular season in January/February, played alongside a series of “Tier 2” amateur tournaments (which the Academy teams are allowed to play in, up to 5 Academy teams per tournament).

Continue reading LCS Academy/Amateur Format Overhaul →